C O N S T Y R U C M T I N G \ T H E D E B T R I S

Constructing the Debris

Keith Winter

This document is a draft (limited to 10 copies) containing extracts from theforthcoming Allotropepress publication ‘Constructing the Debris’ on the recentwork of artist Keith Winter, marking the upcoming solo shows in The Joinery, Dublin & 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Tokyo, Autumn 2011.

It is a visual diary, an assemblage of art-work documentation and representational imagery to expand a narrative around Winter’s practice.

keithwinter.eu

allotropepress

ISSN 2046 - 2859

Overleaf:

detail of balls2thewalls

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’What is the function of this?’

Ah! Ah! Ah! they incite anger, dissatisfaction and ignorance, a one-way mirror-reflection of the bourgeoisie flaneur cloaked in the sterile space he has recently clocked out of. But to the intermittent tyro, a kindred spirit, there will open up a familiar intuition, a transparency and permeability, a hunch that these people are the same as them. A cryptic description, a language that breaks a standardized norm - one suspects that the embodied energy held within the thought processes, the research, the anti-architectural nature of these artists and their Dionysian works equips the renegade urban polymath with his tools for living, recognizable significations, how to play a state-system, not out in the woods - but here in the alpha city.

The handyman is the ultimate nearly-man, a hardware dilettante who makes for the sake of making but is under no obligation to finish what he started. Leading to unfinished business, his product becomes a temporary solution, raising the next question as the next outcome. Beyond the undesirable he instructs a covert invisible culture on how to survive, he is the definitive failure of potential in the eyes of capitalism - but for the lucid few the handyman points the way forward, a rough finish, inaccuracy and the use of subordinate material signal an alternative urban life, a necessity to build through the destruction of the module and a continual existential search that begins deep inside the fabric of the city, in the legibility and the creation of unseen, uncharted spatial territory.

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aesthetica magazine - Angela Darby 21.06.11

Positioned in the centre of the gallery is a large wooden beam structure made from building-site materials. Keith Winter‘s sculptural installation entitled balls2thewalls has an impressive quality to it. The structure stands as a testament to the endless number of hoard-ings and partitions that have blighted Belfast’s cityscape over the past ten years. The cardboard panels at the top of the sculpture have a geometric pattern that is similar to the facades built in the 1960s and the 1970s. Two of the panels below are covered with tarpaulin and the adjacent glass panel has been smashed, seemingly by a small geometric sculpture. The implication seems to be that the systems based in the underpinning of modern architecture has within it the seeds of its own destruction. The urge to revolt against imposed forms, whether social or political is a constant of human existence and this work captures the zeitgeist of capitalist collapse and regime change.

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I’m caught in a machine and there are feelings behind glass screens and I can see all the components stare back at me.

And I cannot speak for the anxiety, the pointing fingers and the official portrait. Clones of old friends lined up - all day making amunition. So on it continues to build a permanent ceiling in the fate of our kids if we have them, probably not.. posterity’s dead.

I walk along a bright corridor with blue metal walls and glaring white lights. Scarlet red flames pour from the gap underneath the doors, flowing across and into eachother from both sides engulfing my feet. The corridor soon intersects another but I keep a straight path.

I arrive at a door, it proceeds to open to a derelict suburban housing estate where an old friend hides with his estranged and reclusive wife amongst the rubble. They are waiting for a message but it has not arrived. They seem spirited to see a familiar face.

They invite me to take part in the construction of their shelter. In the yard piles of subordinate material sit, ordered and sequenced into size, weight and value. We build from what we can remember, post and lintel, makeshift foundations, metal wire stays tied to tree stumps. Our tools are crude but we work on - sharing our basic knowledge as we build.

Columns and beams are erected from thick wooden planks and steel tubes, panels of plastic composites are fixed to the exterior and white rockboard lines the inside walls. Gradually, out of the waste material of the old buildings, we fuse a new shelter together, not pretty to look at but functional and unyeilding in the harsh wind.

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Index

2-3 Keep Out, Berlin 2011, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

4 Scaffold Chute, Edinburgh 2004, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

5 Balls2thewalls, 2011, Pine, Scaffold Timber, Cardboard, Netted Tarpaulin, Laminated

Glass, Catalyst Arts, Belfast.

6-7 Work, Rest & Play, Kefalonia 2006, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

8 Interstitial Space 2010, Signatures 2010, Drive-Thru 2009, C-prints. Collection of the Art

ist.

9 Rollercoaster, Osaka 2006, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

10 What is the function of this? Keith Winter

11 In the Roof, Saudi Arabia 2009, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

12 They’ll break you like they broke Seamus Heaney, Belfast 2011, C-print. Collection of the

Artist.

13 Thanks Corb, Canary Wharf 2011, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

14 Allotrope, 2011, paper. Collection of the Artist.

15 Stash, 2011 oak, pine. Collection of the Artist.

16 Fake Fractals, 2011, coated card. Collection of the Artist.

17 Bedroom Window; London, steel, plexiglas. Collection of the Artist. Concrete Light

Shade, Rudolf Steiner Conference Hall, Aberdeen 2011, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

18 Big Smile, 2010, cherrywood, pine, suspended ceiling light fitting. Collection of the Artist.

19 Store & Cross-brace, 2010, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

20 Night & Day, Tramshed, London 2010, ventilation filter, plasterboard, ladder, pinewood,

C-print. Collection of the Artist.

21 Moving-out, Sharjah 2009, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

22 Exhausting, Bahrain 2009, C-print. Collection of the Artist. Call4phonesex, Limerick

2010, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

23 Window Display, © photo by Ciara Hickey, Belfast 2011.

24 Student protests: a demonstrator kicks in windows at Millbank. Photograph: Dominic

Lipinski/PA. A G20 protestor throws a computer terminal at a branch of RBS. Photograph:

Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images.

25-33 Balls2thewalls, 2011, Pine, Scaffold Timber, Cardboard, Netted Tarpaulin, Laminated

Glass, Catalyst Arts, Belfast.

34 Caught in the Machine, Keith Winter.

35 Belfast Penthouse, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast 2009. Steel, Black Hammerite Paint.

Collection of the Artist.

36-37 I330 (Tribute to Malevich), Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast 2009. Steel, Black Hammerite

Paint. Collection of the Artist.

38 Juffair, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast 2009. Video Still. Collection of the Artist.

39 Bonfires 09 & 10, Belfast. © work and images courtesy of John Duncan

40 Speed Towerz, Bahrain 2009, MDF, palettes, duct tape, plastic. C-print. Collection of the

Artist.

41 Rubbish City, Collaboration with Takahiro Iwasaki, Edinburgh 2004. Household packag

ing, C-Print. Collection of the Artist.

42 Prison Break, 2008. Ink on paper. Collection of the Artist.

43 Constructing with Lines, Bahrain 2009, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

44 A Response to Takahiro Iwasaki, 2008. Ink on paper. Collection of the Artist.

45 Sheikh Zayed Superhighway, Dubai 2009, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

46 Motel Courtyard, 2009, steel, striplight, plexiglas, ink on paper. Collection of the Artist.

47 Other Side, 2011, (detail), pinewood, striplight, netted tarpaulin. Collection of the Artist.

48 Red Cross, 2011, steel. Collection of the Artist.

49 Workman’s Hut, Athens 2005, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

50 Facade, London 2011, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

51 Topopolis 01 & 02, 2011, foam, steel. Collection of the Artist.

52 Obedience (performance still), Weisepuff, Berlin 2009, C-print. Collection of the Artist.

53 I am a Compound, 2010, ink on envelope. Collection of the Artist.

54 Ode to Madonna, 2011, pinewood, cardboard. Collection of the Artist.

55 Pants Down, 2010, steel, plastic. Collection of the Artist.

56 United Party of the Apostle, Arcade Park, Brooklyn 2009, ink on paper. Private Collection,

New York.

57 Meth Head, 2010, etching on Somerset Paper, edition of 20, Seacourt Print Workshop.

58 Drainpipe, 2010, sketch in notebook. Collection of the Artist.

59 Store, 2010, sketch design for production. Collection of the Artist.

60 Glory Hole, 2010, Black Stretch Wrap Film. Collection of the Artist.

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A l l o t r o p e p r e s s

I S S N 2046 - 2859